My promise to you: I will give you a fair price for any work.

That’s my promise. A fair price. Why? Because I treat my customers as I wish to be treated.

Let me explain.

This niggle, this irritation, started in my mind a month or so ago, when it was drawn to my attention that a new garden company in the area was poaching clients from established businesses. Not by “fair” mean -advertising generally, post-drops, we all know the drill. No. These guys? They only go to houses where they see gardeners already working. Then offer to undercut their price. No mention of the quality of work, or how they are better than the “other guy”.

But that’s OK surely? I mean, there is always a little give in prices isn’t there?

Here’s another example of pricing that gets my goat. I have just had to renew my Pubic Liability Insurance and my Commercial Vehicle Insurance. (Any vehicle used for a business requires Commercial Insurance, not private car insurance. Check your professionals are properly insured, or you could find yourself out-of-pocket for any loss or damage. But back to my story). “What’s the lowest quote you have and we’ll try to beat it”, says the helpful man. But why can’t they just give us their best price? A fair price? They may as well say, “Tell us your lowest quote and we’ll take £5 off of it.” It’s unfair, amoral, unethical.

“What’s the lowest quote you have and we’ll try to beat it”

There are some things that we need to accept about businesses. We all have overheads -insurance; National Insurance (in the UK); telephone bills; equipment to buy, replace, service; vehicles to run (petrol isn’t cheap, as we all know). Overheads that aren’t as obvious -safety clothes; training; time spent sourcing materials; paying the accountant to do your tax returns; days wasted sorting out insurance…

So there is a minimum you need to make each year just to cover the cost of just being in business. Take that cost, and divide by the hours you can work. As a gardener, that gives me 40 hours a week (allow for days lost to bad weather, illness, holidays) for 9 months of the year in the UK (once the leaves are down and the snows in, gardening pretty much stops).

Then work out how much money you need to live off for a year. How much do you need for food? Clothes? Household bills? The mortgage? Add it all up and divide by the hours you can work.

That gives you a fair rate. An hourly rate to base your pricing on that gives me a fair reward for my work, and gives the customer a fair price as the work is done to a standard that reflects they are paying a living wage -something that we are told is what everyone should be entitled to.

It seems reasonable. Why can’t insurance companies do the same? Why can’t poaching gardeners go out and find their own new customers? Who knows. All I know is, my customers told them where to get off. Apparently, they are all “more than satisfied” with my work.

I may never be a millionaire, or even rich, but I am content; and I can sleep at night knowing I treat everyone fairly.

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Jobs in the Garden: What to do in April

April 2013. Already. The coldest March in 50 years. Over 6″ of snow in our back garden. The remains of drifts still sheltering next to walls. Mother Nature has the ability to catch us out, to give us what we least expect. Last March was unseasonably warm, a mini-heatwave in Spring. This March there was barely a day where gardening was an option.

So now we’re in April, what should you do?

Well, first off, do everything that should have been done in March but wasn’t as your garden was buried in snow up to your calves!

Last April we were worried about a drought… How ill-founded that fear was!

April is still a threatening month… hard frosts are not unusual; last year we had snow, so cold weather isn’t unusual.

So after you’ve finished the jobs from March, what next?

For those with a mind to get some big stuff done, it’s a good time to lay turf or re-seed a lawn; it should be wet enough to establish without the need for turning on a sprinkler every evening.

do everything that should have been done in March but wasn’t as your garden was buried in snow up to your calves!

The other important, if more mundane, tasks include:

• Don’t fall for April’s promise of warm weather. Frosts will still happen. You can plant out hardy plants – pansies, violas, Primula and the likes, but don’t be fooled into putting out half-hardy plants and definitely no summer bedding yet!
• It is a good time to buy plug plants from the nurseries. Pot them on straight away and put them in a green house or on a warm windowsill.
• If you want to make fuchsias bushier, pinch out the tips of the shoots once a week from now. Each tip you pinch out will cause 2 new leaders to develop, giving you a much bushier plant.
• Plant summer flowering bulbs into pots. Keep them in a greenhouse, or a cool conservatory. I used to use the front porch of our house as it is closed in.
• Plenty of seeds to sow; fruit, veg and flowers! Check the back of the packet. We keep all out seeds in a wooden box and (usually my wife) go through them the start of each month, picking out those we need to sow. As I say, add about 4 to 6 weeks to the published earliest date if you live in The North…
• Use fleece to cover your crop plants. It will not only bring on the growth, but also keep pests off (like pigeons peeking off pea shoots!). If fruit trees are really important to you, keep an eye on the weather. If any frosts are forecast, wrap blossoming trees in fleece for the night only.
• Cut back spring-flowering shrubs as the flowers fade. Forsythia and ornamental Ribes are perhaps the commonest ones. Cut out about 1/3 of the oldest stems from as far down as you can, and shape the rest how you see fit. It flowers on last years wood, so what it grows this summer will flower next spring.
• Dead head your daffodils and tulips. It means they put more energy into the bulbs rather than wasting it on seed.
• As tulip greenery fades, pull it off the plant. As it dies the bulb draws materials from the leaves back to the bulb. This isn’t good as tulip bulbs are prone to viral build-up caused by the decay of the leaves.
• As Daffodil greenery fades it wilts, leaving you with ugly limp and (eventually) yellowing masses of long straggly leaves. Don’t cut them off! If you cut them off too early, next year you will not get any flowers. Loop the leaves around your hand and tie them off with an elastic band; a little like gathering loose string or wires. Then as they go yellow you can pull them off the plant as a single mass.

I’m sure there are other things. My lists are never exhaustive. But it’s a good starting point!

Enjoy the coming Spring!

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